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Monday, March 25, 2013

Hello cute family! How are you doing?? So lovely to hear from all of you! You are such rays of sunshine. Time is super short so I apologize in advance....

This week has been a little slow.... Lots of walking, lots of trying to find new people. But its been good. Lots of learning and trials this week, which always brings a little bit of growing pain, but it´s been good :) The weather is a little nuts... hot, and cold, hot and cold. Sound familiar, utah? :)

We found a very special family this week! They have great desires to change and accept the gospel fully in their lives. We found them when they were at the lowest of lows, the dad without a job and food nearly running out, and they were desperately searching for some light in their lives. Good thing we´ve got light to share :) The dad has since found a job, they are growing happier each day, the son will be baptized this Saturday, they are preparing to get married and the rest of the family will be baptized in April :) They are wonderful.

This week has placed many challenges in our way, and the difficulties of a companionship have shined through many a times this week. As much as we love each other, there´s always going to be difficulties. But each difficulty presents a new way to learn and to better ourselves!

The Lord is completely in control of our lives. He is in the details of every day, every moment. He knows our thoughts, our feelings, our difficulties, our desires, everything. And He knows exactly how to help us as well. He stands ready to help us and walk with us. But it all depends on us--it depends on our faith, our willingness to do our part, our diligence. And it´s only after we exercise our faith and do our part, that the miracles come. That the changes we desire come. It all comes down to faith and work. But I´m certain that when we do what He asks, He jumps at the chance to help us in every single way.

That´s been the majority of my thoughts during this week. Lots and lots of learning. And lots of outpouring of love from Heaven :)

Thank you so much for all your support! For the many emails of love and support I received this week. I am so very blessed!

I´m sorry this email is so short... and boring.... :/

I love you all so much! You are incredible! You are always in my prayers! Have a most wonderful week, filled with joy and blessings and lots of laughs :)

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Oi queridos!! Tudo bom?? Can you believe it´s P-day already? Holy cow. I think I say that every week. But this week went especially fast!

So lovely to hear from you all! My goodness, Bentley is darling. So stinking cute. I die every time I get a new picture! So so darling. Is he signing yet? :) You all sound wonderful though! Becoming an apple family are we? ;) Que legal.

Okay so new rules on emailing! First rule, we only have 40 minutes now... boo. Just FYI. I´ll be even more rushed now, but going to do my best to send a decent email out, tá bom? :) Second rule, the first presidency just changed the rules this week for all missionaries everywhere that we can email friends, recent converts, whoever we want now. Interesting! Don´t now why the change, but kind of cool! So friends, feel free :) I´ll do my best to be in contact with everyone! I love hearing from all of you.

But don´t worry, family, you definitely come first :) Always and forever.

The work is going. It´s a little slow right now.. We have 3 families that we´re working with that are all very special. Two I´ve already talked about, that have received the missionaries several times. But they´ve both committed to try again and that they want to progress and prepare for baptism. They are incredible families! Theyre just very very slow to take action and to actually progress. But we´ll see what happens. All in the Lord´s hands :) The other family we found this week. They have 3 sons. They are very humble, very sweet. And searching for the truth. They are ready for the gospel! We just have to wait for the parents to get married legally which takes at least a month if not more, and then I´m certain they´ll be baptized! They have great faith and huge desire to follow Christ. Perfect, right? :) Just have to deal with that marriage thing first. Nobody here is legally married... it´s very rare to find it. But the other 2 families already were married! Yoohoo!

Umm... what else. Oh, COLD. Winter has begun. It´s very early here to start with the cold. But it has definitely begun. Last week we were dying of heat during emails, and this week we´re bundled up in boots and scarves. Seriously. It´s FRIO. Nighttime is sooo cold. Thermals, leggings, sweats, 3 blankets... that´s what I used last night :) Haha at night when the sun goes down, we cling to eachother in the street with shattering teeth just trying to keep warm until the next house. But I love it! I love this weather! Life is good here in Santa Maria :)

Well.... that´s about it for this week. Not much too exciting! My English is a joke. Yes, my english. You´re going to laugh when we talk on Mother´s day. Holy cow.. can you believe how soon that is? Almost 4 months in the mission already... sheesh!

I´m going to attach photos now. Sending all my love!!! You are the best! Anjos do céu. Thank you for all your support, love, and prayers! Miss you!

Thank you so much for the emails! How wonderful to hear from each of you. You are the coolest! Seriously. I love hearing all the cool things you´re doing and all the great experiences you are having. You are such rays of sunshine. I love ya with all my heart!

Mom and Dad, can´t wait to hear about your cruise and see pictures!!! How fun for you. I´m excited to know everything that you did! And mom, so so cool about your experience with the Book of Mormon! Look at you! So very cool. I´m so proud of my missionary mom :) Really, that is so neat. That she accepted with tears in her eyes, and full of gratitude. Please write me and tell me all the details of that experience!!

Baby Bentley gets cuter and cuter every single week. Seriously. Oh I want to hold that cute little face!!! Minha nossa, he´s going to be running and talking and signing by the time I get home... crazy. By the way, it´s half way through March... did you know that? I cannot believe it! Where is the time going? Holy cow.

Okay, well admidetly (I don´t know how to spell that word...) I don´t much to report this week! It was a rather slow week here... most of our plans every day fell through and our investigators are slow to progress. But we found some really great people this week too! The other day we were in a neighborhood, second day in a row, trying to make contact with two young men that have gone to the church several times already, but we´ve yet to find them at home. We had just knocked on Rafael´s door and no one answered, but we knew there were people in the house. We walked away with the idea that he wasn´t interested and we were going to have to find others. We were talking about how we wanted to find more "Henriques" (he was our baptism last month and was just so powerful, so prepared). Next thing we know, we hear "Sisters!" from down the street and turn around to see Rafael. Long story short, we ended up teaching him and his mom, and he is SO powerful! He´s only 13, but he is an outstanding kid, I tell ya what. So humble, so well mannered, understood everything we taught perfectly. Then right after we went to teach the other young man, his friend as well, Ricardo. Also outstanding and powerful and ready for the gospel. We´re hoping to baptize the two of them this saturday :) We´re calling them our "mini Henriques" or "eleitinhos". (Eleito means elect in Portuguse, but you can add ´´inho´´to mean little... our little elects haha).

Anyway, they are great. We´re excited for them. We´re also working with a wonderful family of 6, who already seem to be members. They are awesome and have a very strong faith. They´ve already received the missionaries many times, but I think we´re going to be able to succeed this time. They seem to be ready now. Ah! A family!

Satan is working hard here in this area. The ward has a lot of issues, and probably triple the number of inactive members than there are active. If not more. But, we´re going to bring them back! Lots of work to do!

Things are going well.. the other sisters are powerful and very hard working. We´re just trying to keep up with them haha. They´re great. It´s a little tough having two in the same area because we knock on the same doors and visit the same members sometimes, but the Lord needs us all here and so we´re making it work!

Hmm... I´ve been trying to remember other things...... But know that your daughter is well and happy! How grateful I am to Heavenly Father for giving me this opportunity of a lifetime.

Time is winding down.. gotta run. I love you with all my heart! You are incredible! I thank Heavenly Father every day for giving me such a wonderful, strong family. What a blessing. Truly. That so many people don´t have. Thank you! I LOVE YOU!!!

Hi sweet family!! How are you?! So lovely to hear from everyone as always. Thank you for all the updates and stories! Mom and Dad, your cruise is this week!!! Woohoo!! How fun! I want lots of pictures and stories okay? Have the time of your lives! Congrats on 25 awesome years :) You guys are the coolest. Loving all the Baby Bentley stories as usual :) So fun. OH, I got two packages earlier this week! One was from Mr. Cheneys for St Patricks Day :) THANK YOU!! Always lovely to have more cookies and treats :) and the other was the package with the memory card! Thank you so much!! It was so fun to sit and look at all the pictures of baby and all the happenings as of late. So so fun. I love you guys! You are each looking just as beautiful and dashing as ever. Especially Baby B. Give him a big kiss for me today.

Então... this week was nuts! So busy, so strange, so good. Lots of everything. First off, BAPTISM! Everything went so well and the Spirit was beautiful. He is a very special young man, and he and his wife will become strong leaders in the church, no doubt. Haha the confirmation on Sunday was a little stressful... He didn´t show up until right before the meeting started (we have classes first, sacrament last).. we were running around trying to find a phone to call him and find out where he was at and if he was going to show or not... but all went well, and Henrique is officially a member of this beautiful church :) What a blessing. It was great weekend.

In other news..... I´ve got a nasty ingrown toenail that has caused a whole lot of trouble this week. We had to come into the city two different times to go to the doctor and have it removed. It was horrid... I ´d let it go for way too long and it was all sorts of infected and gross, and so painful... she looked at it and just shook her head with dissaproving eyes at the silly american who can´t cut her toenails right... oops. But she proceded to just dig at it... no anesthetic, no nothing... just went right in. Haha the assistant was pinning my leg down with one arm and I was squeezing all the blood out of her other hand.... I cried. I admit. It was awful. BUT, that´s what I get, right? :) Haha what a pleasure. WE had to stay in the house the rest of the day because she wanted it elevated (It bled a lot..) and I couldn´t walk. She was also very concerned about the infection spreading... Haha sorry Mom, I know I shouldn´t be telling you all of this... I´m fine, I promise :) But we had to go back two days later and she dug at it again.. it had gotten worse, yay! But she wrapped it up and everything again... we had to stay in the house that day as well... and now we are going back later this afternoon... hopefully it´s getting better and not worse. We´ll see! So.. it´s been a fairly intersting week haha. Lots of time sitting in the house because I wasn´t allowed to walk... lots of time lost because of this. But, we still had a baptism and still met a lot of our goals, so tudo bem :)

The work is going... we´re still trying to find new people. People who are ready and going to progress. A huge problem here is that everyone lives together but isn´t married.. and it takes about a month to process everything to be legally married and nobody has the money to do it... so we´ve run into that problem multiple times, where we are kind of at a stand still with our investigators. But hopefully things will move forward and we can find new people this week!

The new girls are coming this week! One Sister, Sister Robinson, is an american who will be training a brand new Brazilian straight from the CTM. Sister Robinson is actually from Riverton and went to Riverton High! Funny. I didn´t know her in high school, but I recognized her and we know several of the same people. Small world! We´re excited though. It´s going to be fun. Mom, you asked about the house.. it´s very big, very nice... the nicest house in the mission. Plenty of room for two more sisters. We ´ve got a lot of work to do here to strengthen this ward, so it´ll be grea tto have two more to help!

Que mais... Portuguese is good. Still frustrating sometimes.. but it´s getting there. I can understand much more now.. still lost at times.. but I´ve now become a master at just watching the facial expressions of my companion when people are talking and just mimicking that.. haha it´s ridiculous. But it´s going well... talking and underst anding more every day. There were a couple times this week that I spoke with people in English and it was so very strange.. It sounds so weird now. And I kept getting confu sed and thinking I was speaking incorrectly. Funny. Sign of progress in Portuguese though, right? :)

All is good. We are happy. Things are happy. All is well :) I´m learning ever so much here. Every day. So much about myself, especially this week.. .lots of reflecting and self evaluating this week. I´ve got so much to learn and to change! All in time though, one thing at a time... I´ve been studying a talk called A Four Missionary (I think... I don´t know exactly how they translated it.. I have it in Portuguese), but it´s so powerful! It´s been teaching me a whole lot and I´m trying to apply things from that.

Well.. that´s about it on this end of the world... Tudo certo :) I love you so much, family! You are angels. Thank you for all your support and love. I rely on it daily! You are the greatest examples. I love you so very much! Miss you tons.